


The Wrath of Heaven

by MulticoloredRose



Series: Into Darkness, Unafraid [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alaren Lavellan, Alternate Universe, Deviates Slightly From Canon, Gen, In Game Dialogue, Magic, POV Cassandra Pentaghast, Period-Typical Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 05:44:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15834936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MulticoloredRose/pseuds/MulticoloredRose
Summary: The sky has been torn open, the Conclave destroyed and at the center of it all, a mysterious elf burdened with unknown magic.





	The Wrath of Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Author Notes:  
> So this is just my head canon for my Inquisitor Lavellan. There will be severe deviations from canon in later segments and chapters.

_**I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Fade** _  
_**For there is no darkness, nor death either, in the Maker's Light** _  
_**And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost.** _  
_**-Trials 1:14** _

~*~

Cassandra is on the move long before any of her soldiers come to fetch her when she feels the ground rock with a tremendous force and the sky screeches with a crack so loud that it makes her ears ring for minutes afterwards.

She pushes past dozens of soldiers staring open mouthed in horror at the sky as she makes her way to the Conclave. The sky has split open – a giant rift that echoes with the tainted feeling of the Fade leaking out from it.

When the first demon falls out from it – she is not surprised in the slightest.

“Seeker Cassandra! We caught the culprit!” A soldier runs through the town, shouting at the top of his lungs and alerting everyone to his claim. The culprit – the one responsible for all this horror.

“Where are they?” She asks, following them quickly as she listens to the tale they spin for her. He’s an elf who stumbled out of the Fade rift created by that thing in the sky. His hand, on it glows an unknown magic that seems to be tying him to the ebb and flow of that monstrosity.

Cassandra’s not ashamed to admit that she’d gotten a certain image in her mind about the ‘culprit’ long before she saw him. She’d pictured the elves stuck in the alienage’s all around Thedas, angry and embittered people with spite and hatred written across their faces any time she had the misfortune to interact with them. She entertained the possibility that this elf was one of them. An opportunist who saw a gathering of all of the important people who kept them down and decided to strike.

Or, perhaps a Dalish elf, with their strange and frankly horrifyingly barbaric markings etched onto their faces through twisted magic who went around with a hatred for all things Chantry and mankind. Maybe they saw the chance to strike out against the Most Holy and the rest of the movers and shakers and they just couldn’t resist.

Cassandra had actively counseled Justinina against telling all where the meeting would take place just for this reason. It was dangerous and there was a knot in her chest now that she’d been proved right.

When she finally lays her eyes on him, she’s not impressed with what she sees. Matted black hair with dirt and ash smeared on every inch of skin that’s visible under the old and dirty tunic.

It’s not his features that she catches herself staring at though – it’s his hand. The glow is bright in the dark cell and it pops and flares randomly with the booms in the sky, dragging soft exhales of pain from the unconscious elf on the floor.

“I want to know what that is.” Cassandra snaps. “I need to know if that’s the answer to whatever is happening out there.” The two tranquil standing nearby don’t show any signs of distress at her command.

“We will do our best Seeker.”

“Do better than that.” Cassandra snaps as she walks out. Demons are literally falling from the sky and they are without a Divine.

They’re all going to need to do a lot better than their bests.

~*~

_“Bring him out to us.”_

_“We want justice!”_

The cries of the townsfolk are already starting to grate on her nerves. Not for the first time she wishes that this whole thing had been handled with a much more delicate hand than what it was.

They’re afraid, she gets that. What’s happening around them is terrifying to say the least. They’re also angry, they want someone to blame – they need something to make sense and for someone to answer for what’s going wrong in the world right now.

Cassandra needs someone who can do something about that breach long before she does something about those who killed her friends and the people she respected.

The world came first. That was her duty. That was what Justinia demanded of her, and she would fulfil it.

“Give me good news Solas.” Cassandra says when she enters the cell and the apostate mage glances up at her with a slightly annoyed look on his face. He’s wise enough to curb his tongue from the obvious retort he wants to give before he seems to gaze at the mark on the elf’s hand with a kind of exasperated frustration.

That’s not good news and Cassandra doesn’t need him to say it aloud to know that.

“I am doing all that I can, Seeker.” Solas replies. “This is a kind of magic that is unlike anything I have seen before.”

“You said you knew the Fade.”

“And I do.” Solas easily replies to her accusation. “But this is not entirely from the Fade. Connected to it, yes – but its origin is something else entirely. I am still trying to work it out.”

“When can we question him?” Cassandra asks and Solas shakes his head.

“I’m not even sure he will wake up at this point.” He admits. “To have been thrown bodily into the Fade and to escape is…well amazing is not a grand enough word for it. The simple fact that he has done that and _survived_? I would say impossible if I were not seeing it with my own eyes.” Solas grinds up some more leaves into some kind of poultice. “At this point, I cannot say in good conscience that he will ever wake up. It is quite possible that the mark will kill him long before he returns to the waking world.”

“You had best hope that not happen.” Cassandra says, leaving the threat in the air as she turns and leaves the cell. “Leliana, give me some good news.” She practically begs of the red head and Leliana glances up at her from her maps.

“At this time, no one has stepped up to claim responsibility for the attack.” She says.

“That’s supposed to be good news?”

“It means that this very well may be the work of a single individual.” She replies. “And it very well may mean that there will be no further breaches opened up in the skies.”

“Do you think we have him?” Cassandra asks and the bard shrugs.

“I’ll save my judgement for if Solas can wake him up. He may very well be innocent.”

“Innocent? You’ve seen the thing on his hand.”

“I know that I do not know what it is.” Leliana says to Cassandra’s outburst. “Which means that I do not know its purpose or why someone would chose to do that to themselves, if he did it at all. It could all be a coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“I do.” Leliana says. “I’ve seen too many things happen to throw wenches in a perfect plan far too many times not to believe that there is no force more fickle and harder to work around than fate and coincidence.”

“You cannot tell me that it’s a coincidence that his hand responds to the breach. They are clearly connected.”

“Connected yes, but an intentional connection will be what we will have to decide if he wakes up.”

“Ah, yes. Solas says that he’s unsure that he will.”

“Then let us wait. We will have to make plans, lots of them that might fall through, but there is nothing else that we can do at this time.”

“I envy your calm.” Cassandra admits and Leliana looks up at her before a small tilt comes to her lips.

“Calm? This is what my rage looks like Cassandra.” She tells her. “I may not know yet where to move, but when I do – the word _calm_ won’t be the one that crosses your mind.”

~*~

“Seeker! He’s awake!”

 _‘About time’_ Cassandra can’t help but think at the soldiers words.

“Find Leliana. Tell her to meet me down in the cells.” She commands and the soldier salutes before running off to do what’s been bidden of them. She grabs her sword and slides it into the holster on her hip before she wraps up what she’s been working on and heads out, running into the bard on her way down.

“It appears that Solas was successful.” Leliana states and Cassandra nods.

“So it appears.”

It’s the first time that she’s seen the prisoner since Solas joined their little cause and came to offer his aid. He almost looks like an entirely different person, kneeling there on the ground when Cassandra and Leliana enter the room. He’s been cleaned up at some point, the dirt and ash gone and his dark hair falling about his face.

Cassandra has to give it to him, for someone who has just woken up in a cell he’s strangely calm about the whole thing. He doesn’t say anything when the two hands of the Divine enter the room. He doesn’t offer up any platitudes of innocence or something along those lines, he just watches them in a kind of patient silence. Cassandra paces around him and there’s something about his calm demeanor that irks her on some level.

He should be afraid. He should be terrified. Does he not understand the situation that he’s landed himself in? Does he not care?

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now.” Cassandra says to him, leaning down into his space and he doesn’t flinch away from her like most men do. “The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead, except for you.”

“And you think I had something to do with it?” The elf says calmly, and the question feels more like a statement than anything else. He clearly already knows the answer to it, which means asking is more for verification than clarification.

“Explain this.” Cassandra says, reaching out and pulling up his arm. His hand’s strange magic immediately lights up and she watches as his eyes trail to it, a small amount of uncertainty finally crossing his face.

It’s the first emotion he’s shown since they’ve entered. It’s clear that the mark unsettles him in some way.

“Unfortunately…I cannot.” He says after a moment.

“What do you mean you _can’t_?”

“I mean that I don’t know what that is, or how it got there.” He explains and something about him just sitting there – so calm like Varric when he spouted his stories just gets her and she grabs him with a snarl.

“You’re lying!” She spits at him and Leliana is there in a heartbeat, grabbing her arm and pulling her off.

“We need him Cassandra.” The spy reminds her and Cassandra has to take a moment to stomp down the feeling of ineptitude. The feeling that she’s not doing enough and that she needs to act now before things get worse and Maker help whoever gets in her way.

“So what happens now?” The elf asks and Cassandra looks back at him to see him just kneeling there, his gaze fixed straight ahead and steady.

“Do you remember what happened? How this began?” Leliana asks, taking over the interrogation and the elf takes a moment before he speaks.

“I remember running…things were chasing me and then…a woman.” His words remind Cassandra of the accounts of the soldiers. Of the strange woman who stayed behind in the Fade while the elf fell out.

“A woman?” Leliana questions, her voice sounding like she’s never heard anything about this even though Cassandra knows she has.

“She…reached out to me.” The elf says, a tiny look of concentration on his face like the remembrance of the story was complicated for some reason. “But then…” He trails off, the story ending there and Cassandra sighs.

“Go to the forward camp Leliana. I will take him to the rift.” Cassandra says and the spy looks at the elf, before giving Cassandra a ‘behave’ sort of look before she leaves and Cassandra heads over to undo the shackles.

“If I may ask, what did happen?” The elf asks and Cassandra just grabs his wrists and wraps a rope around them. The elf doesn’t fight back, he just sits there and lets her do it. Smart.

“It will be easier to show you.” Cassandra offers up before she turns and starts out the door. The elf follows her without any verbal command, flinching slightly when they get outside and the light temporarily blinds him. Cassandra takes the time to watch his face as he looks up and sees the breach for the first time. There’s shock on his face, legitimate shock and confusion. Like he doesn’t know what he’s seeing.

It doesn’t mean he’s innocent, but it does make her think if he did this that it was accidental. Whatever this magic was, it wasn’t supposed to go down like this.

She looks up at the sky.

“We call it the breach.” She says, staring at the terrifying green tendrils of magic just floating in the air. “It’s a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It’s not the only such rift. Just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave.”

“An explosion can do that?” The elf asks, and there’s an undercurrent of surprise and what seems to be an awed concern in his tone.

“This one did.” Cassandra tells him. “Unless we act, the breach may grow until it swallows the world.” She tries to put a heavy inflection on her words. Impart an understanding of how dangerous this whole situation is to him. If he’s done this, if he knows what’s cause this – she hopes that he sees the folly in it now.

The breach lets out another surge and Cassandra sees his hand light up brightly and it tears a cry of pain from his lips as he’s brought to his knees by it. It takes him a few moments, curling the hand into himself as he takes a couple deep breaths to navigate the pain. Cassandra kneels next to him, a slight desperation to make him fully understand his current predicament deep within her. She needs him to react, to show her more than what he’s been holding back from her. She needs him to understand how dire this whole situation is.

“Each time the breach expands, your mark spreads – and it is killing you.” She says and he glances up at her. “It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn’t much time.”

“You say it may be the key, to doing what?” The elf asks and its clear that he’s biting down the pain as he says it since his voice comes out a little harsher than the soft, calm tones he’s taken before this moment.

“Closing the breach. Whether that’s possible is something we shall discover shortly. It is our only chance however.” Cassandra levels a warning glare onto him. “And yours.”

“You honestly think I did this?” He asks, slowly gaining control of his tone again. “To myself?”

“Not intentionally.” Cassandra admits. “ _Something_ clearly went wrong.” There’s a pause before he looks up at her, his blue eyes staring at her unflinchingly.

“And what if I’m not responsible?” He asks and it sounds like a small challenge to what everyone has come to whisper and outright yell in the town since his arrival.

“Someone is, and you are our only suspect. You wish to prove your innocence, this is the only way.” It’s a lie, one that falls off of her tongue easily, but there’s something in how he looks at her that says he knows it too.

She’s expecting a refusal, or a kind of bartering. Some kind of guarantee that he’ll be spared or that he’ll get something out of all of this. It’s not what she gets however as he takes a moment, looking down at his hand in silent contemplation before he nods and looks back up at her.

“I understand.” He says and it shocks Cassandra enough that she can’t hide it.

“Then?” She says and her voice is too hopeful.

“I’ll do what I can.” He promises in that soft tone, tilting his head like he’s offering her an oath of his intentions, and strangely enough – Cassandra _believes_ him. “Whatever it takes.”

The offer unsettles Cassandra on some level. He knows, she’s sure that he has to know where he stands. Even if he closes the breach somehow – they’re going to kill him. The guilt is clear and even if it weren’t… well many have already settled their minds on the issue and blood must be paid for what’s happened.

And as loathe as Cassandra is to admit – no one will think twice of dragging an elf over the coals to soothe their own consciences…in fact, they may even prefer it.

Cassandra helps him to his feet, pulling him along and standing alongside him as she leads him through the town. There are angry eyes glaring at them from all sides and she can see that he’s taking it in.

“They have decided your guilt. They need it.” Cassandra finds herself explaining – maybe even warning or apologizing for what’s to come. “The people of Haven mourn our Most Holy, Divine Justinia, head of the Chantry. The Conclave was hers. It was a chance for peace between Mages and Templars.” Or at least that was the hope. Cassandra hadn’t really held out that level of optimism for the whole thing. Not with the attitudes that seemed to rush through the mages after that apostate Anders in Kirkwall showed just how vulnerable the Chantry could be if one was patient and determined enough. “She brought their leaders together. Now they are dead. We lash out like the sky, but we must think beyond ourselves, as she did. Until the breach is sealed.” Cassandra motions for him to stop before she pulls out a dagger and cuts the ropes binding him. “There will be a trial, I can promise no more.” She offers up with a small level of useless platitude and a sad attempt to give hope. She doesn’t really think it works. “Come, it is not far.”

“Where are you taking me?” He asks when she cuts through them and she motions towards the far doors.

“We must test your mark on something smaller than the breach.” Cassandra explains as she leads the way and he follows. They keep up a small amount of pointless chatter as they make their way up the road, and Cassandra feels her stomach drop out from under her just like the ground when the rock from the breach hits the bridge and it crumbles beneath them. “Stay behind me!” She commands as she steps forward toward the demons who have just shown up and she doesn’t fully know where he got the staff when the magic goes sailing past her to strike them down. He approaches her far too calmly when they’re finished.

“It’s over.” He says as he looks around and Cassandra points her sword at him.

“Drop your weapon. _Now.”_ She commands and he takes a moment, his eyes searching hers before he seems to relent.

“Very well.” He says as he tilts the staff in his hands and offers for her to take it. It’s the offer that stops her up and she sighs.

“Wait.” She says as she puts her sword away. A sign of apology or perhaps false trust. “I cannot protect you, and I cannot expect you to be defenseless. You don’t need a staff, but you should have one.” She starts to walk away and turns back to look at him standing there, taking her in. “I should remember that you agreed to come willingly.” He inclines slightly at that, heading back over to the cart that fell and grabbing a strap to hold the staff before he catches back up with her.

The path to the forward camp isn’t easy, it’s littered with demons falling from the breach, but very quickly Cassandra is loath to admit that she loses the fear that the mage is going to attack her when her back is turned with each encounter and each time he seems to take the extra focus to place a barrier on her before continuing on with his spells.

It’s…kind.

Far kinder than she’s been to him and it unsettles her.

The meeting with Solas and Varric is both fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunate in the proof that the mark on the elf’s hand can potentially save them – unfortunate in the fact that Varric is there.

“Good to know, and here I thought we were going to be ass deep in demons forever.” Varric says as he saunters over. “Varric Tethras. Rogue, storyteller and occasional unwanted tagalong.” He sends a mocking wink to Cassandra and she huffs as she paces away from them.

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The elf says and Solas huffs out an amused chuckle.

“You may come to reconsider that stance.” The apostate says and Varric makes a motion like Solas has wounded him.

“Ah, I’m sure we’ll become great friends in the valley Chuckles.” Varric says and Cassandra immediately goes to put a stop to that.

“Absolutely not. Your help is appreciated Varric but-”

“Have you been to the valley recently Seeker? Your soldiers aren’t in control anymore.” He knows he has her and she grunts in annoyance as she walks away.

“My name is Solas if there are to be introductions. I’m pleased to see you still live.” Solas says.

“He means, ‘I kept that mark from killing you while you slept’.” Varric ‘translates’ as she’s learned he’s often prone to do.

“Then I owe you my thanks.” The elf says with a small incline of his head.

“Thank me if we manage to close the breach without killing you in the process.” Solas fires back before he looks at Cassandra. “Cassandra, you should know. The magic involved here is unlike any I’ve seen. Your prisoner is a mage, but I find it difficult to imagine any mage having such power.”

“Understood.” Cassandra says with a nod. There are still fragments of the Fade falling all around them and they need to get going. “We must get to the forward camp quickly.” She tells them as she heads in the direction they need to go. She hears Varric blather on – the dwarf seems incapable of remaining quiet for even two minutes – and she scolds him about his comment for ‘spinning a story’.

“So, what’s your name?” Varric eventually asks once they’ve talked to Chancellor Roderick and the elf has made the choice to go the way of the Mountain Pass in hopes of finding, or rescuing, any scouts still left alive.

“I’m Alaren.” The elf, Alaren, states.

“Pleasure to meet you Alaren. Hope you don’t die.” Varric jokes easily and Cassandra envies his glib at a time like this.

~*~

They’re calling him the ‘Herald of Andraste’. The same people who demanded that he be dragged out and killed only days ago are now falling over themselves to get a glimpse of their ‘chosen savior’.

Sometimes, Cassandra just has to shake her head and marvel at the odd twists and turns life can take. But she’s grateful – Solas has assured her that the breach in the sky is no longer open despite staying there and he believes that once Alaren – or the Herald – wakes up he might be able to continue going around and closing the small breaches that are terrorizing everyone.

The realization of what she must do comes to her suddenly while Chancellor Roderick tears into the Herald the moment he walks into the room.

“I did everything I could.” Alaren says with that soft, calm tone of his. “And it almost killed me.” Cassandra knows this to be true, she saw the way the breach ripped his strength from him. She saw how it brought him to his knees but he refused to let up until it closed.

“And yet you still live.” Roderick says with a sneer. “A convenient result so far as you’re concerned.” Cassandra has to hold back an eye roll at those words. How foolish and ridiculous did the man sound?

“Have a care Chancellor.” Cassandra intervenes and she’s immediately made aware that the Chantry will not act. Something in her tells her that if she were to reach out to them she’ll find a room full of Roderick’s instead of Justinia’s. Roderick doesn’t care about the breach, and he doesn’t care what happens next so long as it validates his own power over the masses and over the Herald.

There will be many in the coming days who will feel similar. An _elf_ daring to try to be above his station and be more than what he is. They’ll do anything to tear him down and yet, he might be the only thing standing between this world and annihilation. She’s slamming the book down before she’s even realized that she’s made the choice to go forward with this.

_The Inquisition._

Even just the name sends a tremor of terror through her. Roderick doesn’t seem to have the same emotion, his leaning towards the area of disgust and annoyance at her push back to his supposed ‘authority’.

“Help us fix it, before it’s too late.” Cassandra asks Alaren moments later when they’re in the room alone. Just him, Leliana and her and a threat that they cannot ignore but that they will be helpless in front of if he decides to cut ties and try to go his own way. The elf takes a moment, glancing at her hand before he nods and reaches out, clasping it firmly.

Cassandra sends up a small prayer that she’s not making a giant mistake.

 


End file.
